Flynn, Errol

Swashbuckling, scandal-plagued hero of numerous Warner Brothers costume dramas of the 1930s, including the classic Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), a clip of which appears at the end of Rabbit Hood (Jones, 1949). Also well remembered for standout films such as The Sea Hawk, The Dawn Patrol and The Charge of the Light Brigade. His trial for statutory rape in 1942 -- he was acquitted -- damaged his reputation and spawned the phrase “In like Flynn, much to his chagrin”.

Flynn is one of the students of Kay Kyser in Hollywood Steps Out (Avery, 1941). Daffy Duck, posing as a movie director and conning the studio cop in Hollywood Daffy (Freleng, 1946) asks the cop “what has Errol Flynn got that you haven’t?”, followed quickly by an aside to the audience that they were not to answer that. Porky asks Leon Schlesinger what Errol Flynn had that he (Porky) did not in You Ought to be In Pictures (Freleng, 1940). Bugs snaps to the audience at the joust he is participating in in Knights Must Fall (Freleng, 1949), asking rhetorically if they were expecting Flynn, given the appearence of Bugs on a little donkey.